Daddy

did the Stations Of The Cross every week,
ten of them on his Littlewoods Pools entry.
When after many years he lost interest
he still paid for the form, but had his children
fill it in for him. At the weekend they checked the football scores too.
Whoever filled in the form, we never won any money,
but Dad was happy that he was preparing us for his idea
of an adult life. One where the displacement activities were more mature,
and they more effectively sustained the illusions of status he wanted us to hold to.
Had I paid for what I filled in and checked every week I might have
invested hope in it. He spent twice as much on the on pools
as my weekly pocket money, and I could not mind his faith
in gambling as the loss leader life du jour.
I was kept by him as a loss leader's loss leader.
But his faith in risk burnt him out when he became unemployed,
a status that I inherited far sooner than he did.
So never winning the pools was my prep for keeping
the civil servants at Social Security in work,
and myself in pocket money, by my applying for jobs
I was never going to get, but which it was my sacred duty was to apply for.